Blacklists, ahoy! PROTECT IP Act sails on to Senate floor

The Senate Judiciary Committee this morning unanimously approved the PROTECT IP Act by a voice vote after a brief markup; the hugely controversial Internet blacklisting bill now moves to the Senate floor with minimal changes, and may—or may not—soon come to a vote.

The bill builds on last year's proposed COICA legislation, which would have given the government power to go to court and get a website's domain name blocked from American DNS servers. Credit card companies and advertising networks would be forbidden to do business with such sites. The bill was also passed unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) put a hold on the bill when it came to the floor.

The new version tightens up its definition of infringing sites, but adds things like a “private right of action” for companies who want to cripple sites without waiting for the government to get involved. Search engines are also prohibited from linking to blocked sites.

Major rightsholders are particularly thrilled. The MPAA and the cable lobby both expressed enthusiastic support, and the US Chamber of Commerce said in a statement, "Rogue sites and their operators contribute nothing to the US economy. They do not innovate, they do not pay taxes, they do not follow safety standards, and they do not follow the law. Today’s vote serves as a wakeup call to those who illicitly profit at the expense of American businesses and consumers—the US will not tolerate your careless, reckless, malicious behavior."

Will the bill get a vote in the Senate this time? Wyden has been cautious in his public statements, previously suggesting that certain changes to the bill could make it more palatable to him. He did make clear, however, that the bill in "its current form" was not acceptable.

As he told Ars when we spoke a month ago, "If the new version of COICA is like last year's version of COICA, I will do everything in my power to block it."

Back on May 12, when the PROTECT IP Act was introduced, Wyden said it would be "hard to consider legislation that would give the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security additional authorities to combat online content infringement While the departments finally responded to questions that I sent them more than three months ago, their responses reveal a single-minded determination to stamp out online infringement and demonstrate little if any understanding of the Internet’s value and function."

Of particular concern is "their refusal to explain how linking is different than free speech. Given that hyperlinks in many ways form the foundation of the Internet, efforts to go after one site for linking to another site—which the Administration is currently doing and the Protect IP Act would expand on—threaten to do much more than protect IP."

There are so many provisions in this awful bill that could be misused by big business in so many ways. This bill is not the way to fight piracy on the internet. I am honestly surprised it has gotten as far as it has in the current form. But then I shouldn't expect too much from the US Government, I guess.

Not comfortable with where this is going, especially given the subjective nature of it. Sounds like the U.S. government just created a lot of extra work for search engines maintaining extra lists and crap. They'll probably keep the main list themselves, then make others pay them a monthly fee to access it and update their systems, like with "do not call" lists. (Am I thinking of the right thing?)

It just seems ridiculously stupid enacting something without realizing the huge cost / work impact it's going to have on others. Or, maybe they did, and they did it anyways. The government isn't a company, so they don't seem to be big on cost/benefit analysis, esp. when it comes to others cost for their benefit.

I'm the kind of guy that likes to marathon his dramatic storyline viewing in one sitting. By that right, can we just hurry up and roll on into full blown fascism and get that second American Revolution out of the way so I can see what happens without waiting? I want to see this series play out already before I get tired of watching it. God help me if another Michael Jackson dies again, I'll never finish this series.

We just updated the MAFIAAFire Redirector plugin for Firefox (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... add-on.ars) which made it much more robust and we are already more than half way through another plugin that will cut the testicles off PROTECT IP if it ever comes into law!

We just updated the MAFIAAFire Redirector plugin for Firefox (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... add-on.ars) which made it much more robust and we are already more than half way through another plugin that will cut the testicles off PROTECT IP if it ever comes into law!

Damage--> begs to be routed around!

EDIT: Beaten by yasth

Don't you worry none, avid Ars readers, expect this to be remedied by expedient government regulation to expand the DMCA to make add-ons like MAFIAAFire illegal. You can rest easy knowing that the interweb tubes will be civilized whether these CROOKS like it or not.

"Rogue sites and their operators contribute nothing to the US economy. They do not innovate, they do not pay taxes, they do not follow safety standards, and they do not follow the law. Today’s vote serves as a wakeup call to those who illicitly profit at the expense of American businesses and consumers—the US will not tolerate your careless, reckless, malicious behavior."

Such lovely criteria to be considered a rogue site. So when can we blacklist Goldman Sachs, General Electric and BP?

With Fireice and MAFIAAFIRE just popping up recently for Firfox and Chrome, I doubt removing DNS entries will do much, if anything at all to curtail piracy or the number of sites that provide links to torrent files (hell, after HADOPI went into effect piracy rose!). After all, removing the lookup from DNS servers in the US doesn't take the site offline in any way. Anyone can setup their own DNS at home, use a free unfiltered DNS from anywhere in the world, use the previously mentioned plugins, or just keep tabs on the IP addresses of their favorite sites.

IMO this is nothing more than trying to curtail drug purchases in a known drug area by removing the street signs. Sure, might be harder to find by a tad, but everyone that's already been there prior knows how to get back since the streets are all still there. So you haven't stopped anything, only made life a bit more difficult for both innocent and guilty alike.

[T]he US Chamber of Commerce said in a statement, "Rogue sites and their operators contribute nothing to the US economy. They do not innovate, they do not pay taxes, they do not follow safety standards, and they do not follow the law. Today’s vote serves as a wakeup call to those who illicitly profit at the expense of American businesses and consumers—the US will not tolerate your careless, reckless, malicious behavior."

I'll be sure to save this comment, as I'm sure I'll want to reword it to apply to the media associations. They're not innovating, they're undoubtedly finding tax loopholes, the only reason they follow the law is because they wrote it, etc. Cyberspace will not tolerate their careless, reckless, malicious behavior.

[T]he US Chamber of Commerce said in a statement, "Rogue sites and their operators contribute nothing to the US economy. They do not innovate, they do not pay taxes, they do not follow safety standards, and they do not follow the law.

Ok so the summary problem is, the rogue sites (or THE WORLD *wink wink nudge nudge*) outside the country doesn't pay the US taxes, they do not follow US laws, and they do not follow US safety standards? And the response is to rage quit from the world?

I disagree the rest of the world does innovate, quite better in fact and historically it is the areas with higher wealth and lowest IP regulations. I don't recall a section of OSHA that pertains to website safety standards, but maybe there are major issues I don't know about, we should probably post a lessons learned on it.

Isn't this a waist of time, at best, for the MPAA and RIAA and at worst something truly scary? The file sharers are just going to find a way around a black listed IPs and continue along as usual, or go in completely different direction and have parties where everyone brings their videos and music on portable terrabite drives and they exchange. No way to trace and no worries about hitting your data cap!

Ok so the summary problem is, the rogue sites (or THE WORLD *wink wink nudge nudge*) outside the country doesn't pay the US taxes, they do not follow US laws, and they do not follow US safety standards? And the response is to rage quit from the world?

Didn't you know? The best IP in the world all comes from the USA, so if a foreign site is violating US IP laws, then they must, by definition, be stealing US IP.

Realistically, though, this bill is not about defending US IP overseas (that's what ACTA and the like are for). It's more about protecting US IP owners from US citizens, who, left to their own devices, don't seem to recognize the God-given right to own culture for 120+ years.

If this passes, the rest of the world should be prepared to join Canada on the Special 301 list, for not passing similar laws. I am also sure USA would gladly supply the blacklists to us.I wonder when this sort of stupidity will end. Not in the near future it seems, as most Americans seem quite content with this (present company excluded).

The US Chamber of Commerce said in a statement, "Rogue sites and their operators contribute nothing to the US economy. They do not innovate, they do not pay taxes, they do not follow safety standards, and they do not follow the law. Today’s vote serves as a wakeup call to those who illicitly profit at the expense of American businesses and consumers—the US will not tolerate your careless, reckless, malicious behavior."

It was about time that we shut down the sites that do not contribute to the economy! The day this law is enacted Congress will be shut down. The best law ever.

Ok so the summary problem is, the rogue sites (or THE WORLD *wink wink nudge nudge*) outside the country doesn't pay the US taxes, they do not follow US laws, and they do not follow US safety standards? And the response is to rage quit from the world?

Didn't you know? The best IP in the world all comes from the USA, so if a foreign site is violating US IP laws, then they must, by definition, be stealing US IP.

Realistically, though, this bill is not about defending US IP overseas (that's what ACTA and the like are for). It's more about protecting US IP owners from US citizens, who, left to their own devices, don't seem to recognize the God-given right to own culture for 120+ years.

This may be the intent of the bill, but as has been shown with the seizure of the poker sites by the US Federal Govt, the US doesn't seem to care very much if they kill access to a domain to the entire world, whether legal in another country or not, rather than putting measures in place to block access to US citizens only. Just because it contravenes US law doesn't mean the US has the right to make that call for the entire world, does it?

"Rogue sites and their operators contribute nothing to the US economy. They do not innovate, they do not pay taxes, they do not follow safety standards, and they do not follow the law. Today’s vote serves as a wakeup call to those who illicitly profit at the expense of American businesses and consumers—the US will not tolerate your careless, reckless, malicious behavior."

Such lovely criteria to be considered a rogue site. So when can we blacklist Goldman Sachs, General Electric and BP?

Rogue sites innovate more than the MAFIAA does, they don't pay taxes because they're in a foreign country, and they don't have to follow US law because they're foreign. The only thing the MAFIAA won't tolerate is US citizens not wanting to pay over and over again for the same content for the rest of their lives.

Okay is this why my XP rebooted this morn with screen I mustrevalidate my copy of Windows? Did Micro$ofts check to the OR Senatorbounce or is he a dishonest politician(doesn't stay bought)?

Anyway did M$ jump the gun or were just enforcing the no longersupported please update memo? As I called when online failed, and MS spkoeshelper told me coukld not help as their 'tool' down. Apparantly server(s) down. Thought they had more than one my bad. Or- ANONYMOUS is at it again.

Anyhoot- anyone else wakeup to a please revalidate prebluescreen of death?Now now I do still have original receipt and disc and box(believe it really annoys M$ that they used to provide disks).

Hard to figure as when built everything locked down tight. But due to changes I made... I did enable/reenable a connection but have done that before without grief!). Halfway through my 72 hours!!! M$ said call back- BUT I AM AFRAID!

Also remember the DMCA is an American law, get on Canadian hosting and... nannie nannie poo poo !

With over 100,000 downloads mafiaafire.com has been getting beaten worse than poor Bill by Hillary (google it!).

So we launched a support site ilovemafiaafire.net/MAFIAA-forum/one day and over 9,000 hits, mostly from the US.

What does that tell you? People don't like getting censored unfairly and all the US government is doing is making services like ours more popular, throwing its local creative people aside for the "creative industry", and wiping its behind with the US constitution which it is supposed to follow.

There are so many provisions in this awful bill that could be misused by big business in so many ways.

Can you name three of them, then?

Well, the link to the text in a comment above doesn't provide a selectable copy, so I can't copy/paste easily. It'll have to be summaries.

1) The definition of a site "dedicated to infringing activities". This determination is largely left to the complainants, i.e. the rightsholders, who must have a good faith belief that a given site falls under that distinction before submitting their request to the AG. It notes that such a site has "no significant use" outside copyright infringement, but doesn't define "significant."

2) Who gets notified by the AG. The person who actually runs the site may be completely left in the dark, as the registrar is the one that gets notified of the action, and the site host is the one who has to take it down. Communicating with users simply gets a mention that "an entity taking an action...shall determine whether and how to communicate such action to the entity's users or customers" (emphasis mine).

3) Eliminating the Financial Incentive to Steal Intellectual Property Online. That's the name of section 4, and it relates to stopping advertisers and credit card processors. Regardless of whether the claim is valid, once a claim is made the site against which action is being taken basically stops making money. This is the part most obviously open to abuse; want to shut down a competitor for good? Accuse them of copyright infringement! Even if they're in another country, they'll stop making money, so they won't even be able to pay lawyers to defend against your claim, much less expand their business!

Will it be ok if I put a url online but don't actually put an <a> tag on it?

What if I don't use HTML but rather drive the browser with Javascript?

Or maybe it is ok if I instead hand out shell scripts that wget illicit URLs and parse out the interesting bits?

I'm curious what the legal definition of linking is. I'm sure it is a good one -- these guys are usually on top of their technology.

I was curious about the very same thing. Does censoring/blacklisting a website make it illegal to mention its name, lest someone copy its name into the address bar from your mention? Or will the Chinament simply have a giant $404$ page?

I would think free speech would at least leave the rest of us latitude to *mention* a blacklisted url for purposes of discussion. For it is at least possible, conceivable that a website or two may be blacklisted for a wrong reason.

I feel prone to consider that those involved in blacklisting are, indeed, humans. In fact, they are likely to be average paid government workers, right? And their judgment calls cannot be relied upon to be any more unassailable than mine. And MINE are by no means unassailable, for they have gotten me to where I am right now. Imagine that.

I'm the kind of guy that likes to marathon his dramatic storyline viewing in one sitting. By that right, can we just hurry up and roll on into full blown fascism and get that second American Revolution out of the way so I can see what happens without waiting? I want to see this series play out already before I get tired of watching it. God help me if another Michael Jackson dies again, I'll never finish this series.

Exactly! Why does the American people not see the writing on the wall? We are totally becoming a fascist country.